282 réponses à ce sujet

[Sesshaku]

inko1nsiderate wrote...

Ugh... so clear that people on here don't really know the history of 20th century Physics. The transition to quantum mechanics was the last, big, paradigm shift. But it doesn't 'throw out' Newton's laws, it just refines their level of applicability.

FTL travel might be possible, and is in fact possible in certain solutions to General Relativity. The problem is that:

a) To make wormholes stable you need negative energy density. This requires exotic particles. Only theories I am aware of that have these are certain String Theory models. But there are technical aspects about wormholes... like the fact that the idea of 'creating them' doesn't... make... sense.  As far as I am aware, they should just be natural features of universal structure.  It is hard to see how you could dynamically create and destroy them without having some sort of FTL magic to begin with.

The amount of mass it takes to create so-called 'warp drive' metrics of spacetime is ... insane. You'd pretty much have to collapse Jupiter into a tiny volume to get any noticeable effect.

At this point, people say 'that is only our current understanding!'. Yes, but herein lies the problem: experimental constraints on current physics are so good. To get new behavior that we don't know about, you need new physics. But the new physics has to interact with the old physics at some scale, right? That is how we found Quantum: eventually Newton's laws stopped giving results that agreed with experiment. Think of it this way: hardly anything that happens at the electroweak symmetry breaking scale has any relevance when you build a solid state drive, and it has only a few noticeable effects at 'low energy' and mostly only nuclear decay. The higher energy scale you probe, the more important electroweak theory gets. But these are at energies that are pretty high, hence why we call particle physics 'High Energy physics'. This energy scale is only on the few hundreds of GeV, around the mass of the Z boson, yet the energy scale the LHC is probing is on the order of several TeV. Yet we haven't found anything that isn't explained by the Standard Model. Not only that, but we have astrophysical constraints, cosmological constraints, rare decay constraints, etc etc.

If you are going to find new physics, it has to be made consistent with these constraints, otherwise your theory is no good as it doesn't agree with experiment. These constraints are so good, that this is even really hard to do for theories that aren't particularly exotic. Supersymmetry isn't exotic, as it doesn't allow new FTL, yet even SUSY has pretty strong constraints on it.

And that being said, the only way you could get FTL travel without the impractical to make warp drive (impractical based on the sheer amount of mass it requires), is in a theory that breaks Lorentz Invariance. Problem is, our current observations need it pretty strongly, so that in the very least puts constraints on how strongly this Lorentz Invariance can be broken. With some experiments with gamma rays in space, we don't see any evidence for this down to a certain scale, such a small scale that the idea is heavily constrained.

People just don't get how physics works. I am sure in 100 years we will have crazy technology, but the kind of paradigm shift that people are talking about in threads like this is... just not really grounded historically. Sure, it might qualitatively look the same, but you really need to look at the technical details.

I can't think of an idea that has been experimentally backed and widely believed and then thrown out in pretty much the entire history of physics, let alone in 20th century physics. For FTL to be possible, we'd have to basically say 'all past experiments were wrong'. That hasn't really happened. I don't see why anyone should expect that this must happen, particularly not if they want to ground their ideas in the history of physics.

/end rant

Nonsense, you can travel from Earth to Andromeda in a spaceship with the size of a car, then make a sand castle on a planet with life and go back to Earth. 

Fuel?Energy?Mass? Buy Volvo StarBrat Spaceship, the engine is pure Space Magic:wizard:. 

StarGateGod wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

StarGateGod wrote...

Sesshaku wrote...

warrior256 wrote...

I'll be honest. I'm a bit of a skeptic about alien life. At the very least, I don't believe there are advanced alien civilizations out there that have visited Earth before. I'm not saying that there are no aliens, I just don't think there is some sort of galatic government out there that rules over all known species in the galaxy.

I would like for some sort of galatic civilization to exist like in Mass Effect, but I just really doubt it.

Agree, the Universe it's just to big for that kind of interaction. And we have no solid theory that could actually make us to believe that it's possible to travel so easily like in Mass Effect. In fact quite the opposite.

Chances are that Human Space Conquest will be a mix of 2001 Space Odissey and The Forever War.
Or even like Mass Effect BEFORE the discovering of the protheans and the mass relays.

 In real world i think that humanity will:

1º: Start to discover Planets that COULD have life (the search has already started and bringed some results).
2º: Eventually we will find life in Europe or perhaps fossils of bacterias on Mars (that once had water).
3º: If we have lucky, one day projects like the one at SETI will discover a signal that after serious analysis would be confirmed as "extraterrestial origin". Then we wouls spend probably a lot of time figuring out what the hell says and answer something that will take hundreds of years to arrive, and hundreds of years to come back as a new answer. For example, let's say the Aliens live 100 lightyears away. That would mean we would have to wait at least 200 years for getting an answer to what we send.

does seti use light raves or radio waves

SETI uses radio telescopes such as the one in the Arecibo Observatory.

that what i though, so then 100light uyears away would take thouasands of years each way

I was trying to be optimistic that we would find a way to send and receive something at a faster speed .

But yes, the current picture is even less happy.

Modifié par Sesshaku, 06 avril 2012 - 08:22 .

[StarGateGod]

BatmanPWNS wrote...

I'll laugh the day we find an alien specie that still has slavery, walks around naked and eat each other.
Wonder how humans would react?

im going to get flamed for this but slavery isnt inherently wrong, we judge it wrong because its a cultural thing, the same as going around naked we judge it to be bad to be naked. If a culture judges slavery to be okay and being naked okay then we as a species has no right to judge them as ong ads they dont try to enslave us

[ScaredPeach]

Who is to say aliens lifeforms will be remotely our size? They could be solar system sized amoebas for all we know, and THAT would suck. It would be just like those flash games where you play as a cell consuming smaller cells to grow to be the largest, except with cells being solar systems. ITS GONNA HAPPEN, I KNOW ALL.

[Pottumuusi]

StarGateGod wrote...

that what i though, so then 100light uyears away would take thouasands of years each way

Radiowaves are electromagnetic radiation so they travel at C, so it would take a total of 200 years for each exchange.

[G Kevin]

inko1nsiderate wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

Some new concept is probably out there, undiscovered that will "update" our understanding of physics.

Plus if FTL travel does through out past experiments, you can always make exceptions until further understanding explains it. It seems impossible now with what we know but it could also be tied with a physical concept that we have not discovered yet. in time, we will find something.

...I get the idea you didn't read what I wrote.

I admit, I did skim the post. I wanted to write my thought down before I forgot it.

I think I did understand what you were saying, correct me if I am wrong though. FTL travel, with our current understanding of physics, is not likely and is seemingly impossible.

EDIT: Since we are talking about radio, here: 
 

Modifié par G Kevin, 06 avril 2012 - 08:24 .

[Pottumuusi]

ScaredPeach wrote...

Who is to say aliens lifeforms will be remotely our size? They could be solar system sized amoebas for all we know, and THAT would suck. It would be just like those flash games where you play as a cell consuming smaller cells to grow to be the largest, except with cells being solar systems. ITS GONNA HAPPEN, I KNOW ALL.

Creatures of that size would collapse under their own gravity, and they would have no sufficient source of energy.

[StarGateGod]

Sesshaku wrote...

inko1nsiderate wrote...

Ugh... so clear that people on here don't really know the history of 20th century Physics. The transition to quantum mechanics was the last, big, paradigm shift. But it doesn't 'throw out' Newton's laws, it just refines their level of applicability.

FTL travel might be possible, and is in fact possible in certain solutions to General Relativity. The problem is that:

a) To make wormholes stable you need negative energy density. This requires exotic particles. Only theories I am aware of that have these are certain String Theory models. But there are technical aspects about wormholes... like the fact that the idea of 'creating them' doesn't... make... sense.  As far as I am aware, they should just be natural features of universal structure.  It is hard to see how you could dynamically create and destroy them without having some sort of FTL magic to begin with.

The amount of mass it takes to create so-called 'warp drive' metrics of spacetime is ... insane. You'd pretty much have to collapse Jupiter into a tiny volume to get any noticeable effect.

At this point, people say 'that is only our current understanding!'. Yes, but herein lies the problem: experimental constraints on current physics are so good. To get new behavior that we don't know about, you need new physics. But the new physics has to interact with the old physics at some scale, right? That is how we found Quantum: eventually Newton's laws stopped giving results that agreed with experiment. Think of it this way: hardly anything that happens at the electroweak symmetry breaking scale has any relevance when you build a solid state drive, and it has only a few noticeable effects at 'low energy' and mostly only nuclear decay. The higher energy scale you probe, the more important electroweak theory gets. But these are at energies that are pretty high, hence why we call particle physics 'High Energy physics'. This energy scale is only on the few hundreds of GeV, around the mass of the Z boson, yet the energy scale the LHC is probing is on the order of several TeV. Yet we haven't found anything that isn't explained by the Standard Model. Not only that, but we have astrophysical constraints, cosmological constraints, rare decay constraints, etc etc.

If you are going to find new physics, it has to be made consistent with these constraints, otherwise your theory is no good as it doesn't agree with experiment. These constraints are so good, that this is even really hard to do for theories that aren't particularly exotic. Supersymmetry isn't exotic, as it doesn't allow new FTL, yet even SUSY has pretty strong constraints on it.

And that being said, the only way you could get FTL travel without the impractical to make warp drive (impractical based on the sheer amount of mass it requires), is in a theory that breaks Lorentz Invariance. Problem is, our current observations need it pretty strongly, so that in the very least puts constraints on how strongly this Lorentz Invariance can be broken. With some experiments with gamma rays in space, we don't see any evidence for this down to a certain scale, such a small scale that the idea is heavily constrained.

People just don't get how physics works. I am sure in 100 years we will have crazy technology, but the kind of paradigm shift that people are talking about in threads like this is... just not really grounded historically. Sure, it might qualitatively look the same, but you really need to look at the technical details.

I can't think of an idea that has been experimentally backed and widely believed and then thrown out in pretty much the entire history of physics, let alone in 20th century physics. For FTL to be possible, we'd have to basically say 'all past experiments were wrong'. That hasn't really happened. I don't see why anyone should expect that this must happen, particularly not if they want to ground their ideas in the history of physics.

/end rant

Nonsense, you can travel from Earth to Andromeda in a spaceship with the size of a car, then make a sand castle on a planet with life and go back to Earth. 

Fuel?Energy?Mass? Buy Volvo StarBrat Spaceship, the engine is pure Space Magic:wizard:. 

StarGateGod wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

StarGateGod wrote...

Sesshaku wrote...

warrior256 wrote...

I'll be honest. I'm a bit of a skeptic about alien life. At the very least, I don't believe there are advanced alien civilizations out there that have visited Earth before. I'm not saying that there are no aliens, I just don't think there is some sort of galatic government out there that rules over all known species in the galaxy.

I would like for some sort of galatic civilization to exist like in Mass Effect, but I just really doubt it.

Agree, the Universe it's just to big for that kind of interaction. And we have no solid theory that could actually make us to believe that it's possible to travel so easily like in Mass Effect. In fact quite the opposite.

Chances are that Human Space Conquest will be a mix of 2001 Space Odissey and The Forever War.
Or even like Mass Effect BEFORE the discovering of the protheans and the mass relays.

 In real world i think that humanity will:

1º: Start to discover Planets that COULD have life (the search has already started and bringed some results).
2º: Eventually we will find life in Europe or perhaps fossils of bacterias on Mars (that once had water).
3º: If we have lucky, one day projects like the one at SETI will discover a signal that after serious analysis would be confirmed as "extraterrestial origin". Then we wouls spend probably a lot of time figuring out what the hell says and answer something that will take hundreds of years to arrive, and hundreds of years to come back as a new answer. For example, let's say the Aliens live 100 lightyears away. That would mean we would have to wait at least 200 years for getting an answer to what we send.

does seti use light raves or radio waves

SETI uses radio telescopes such as the one in the Arecibo Observatory.

that what i though, so then 100light uyears away would take thouasands of years each way

I was trying to be optimistic that we would find a way to send and receive something at a faster speed .

But yes, the current picture is even less happy.

although once we get the first sounds wave and find where it came from there is no reason we could direct a laser array to  "flash" the system constantly for a  few months"

[NovaM4]

Have you guys ever seen this? It's called:"Playing god" (A BBC Documentairy)
Our technology is more advanced that i expected.

www.youtube.com/watch

[Sesshaku]

ScaredPeach wrote...

Who is to say aliens lifeforms will be remotely our size? They could be solar system sized amoebas for all we know, and THAT would suck. It would be just like those flash games where you play as a cell consuming smaller cells to grow to be the largest, except with cells being solar systems. ITS GONNA HAPPEN, I KNOW ALL.

I find that higly unlikely. We don't know how life outside earth is going to be, but im pretty sure that it won't be solar sized .

That reminded me.

[inko1nsiderate]

StarGateGod wrote...

that what i though, so then 100light uyears away would take thouasands of years each way

Just to jump in here: radio waves are light.

The intensity of light decays over distance. In fact, for a lot of cases it decays as the inverse of distance squared. I don't see how anyone could ever send us a message with enough intensity to actually reach Earth (using light) unless they were very close, or pointing their message right at us.

It is actually relatively challenging to continue radio contact with Voyager, and it hasn't even left the solar system yet.

That is part of the reason why Fermi's paradox seems rather silly. I just can't imagine that alien life would actually be able to communicate with us unless they got incredibly lucky and were both close to us, and point their messages right at us.

[pistolols]

Sesshaku wrote...

pistolols wrote...

Sesshaku wrote...

I agree with the OP, chances that we are alone on this vast universe are small.

However, when speaking of UFO and that kind of bs. I must say i disagree completly. I think that there's no reason or evidence to believe we have ever been visited by aliens, and im pretty sure that its more likely to have a conversation over the centuries that actually seing them.

Carl Sagan pretty much explained the problems with UFO and Real Science.

lol just in the first 45 seconds he makes a condescending comment about "1 or 2 witness's". 

Within a year after Carl Sagan died, a giant triangle thing was seen hovering over Phoenix arizona by thousands of people, including then governor of the state. 

Sagan was a smart guy but he was mistaken.

He was human and a scientist on the XX century, every message that's 20 years old its outdated.

However, he was not mistaken.

He was telling "look guys, i really want humanity to find aliens, but all i know about the cosmos and all the research i made about these UFO's showed me that it's not likely to be real"


The Triangle thing on the sky doesn't have to be aliens ships.

First of all:

- No matter how advanced the civilization is, travelling through space it's not a simple task. The distances are HUUUUUUGEEEE. The dangers are incredible high. There's no way a ship that small could travel all the way here at speed light. But let's assume its a robot and that has some magic engines that allow them to have so much energy/fuel to do that awesome moves.

There have been many MANY scientist studing all these reports and not even one concluded that they were aliens. In fact, most of them found evidence that it was either a scam or a already known phenomenon.

Also, most of the UFO supporters believe that the US goverment knows all about this and they're not willing to tell anyone.

Well, with all due respect, USA it's not the only country in the world. And i have no reason to believe that something as big as this could have avoided REAL leaks for more than 1 century. I mean, we have wikileaks about corruption and espionage but not even one scientist that rebels against the system and give humanity answers?.

C'mon, there a LOT of dedicated people trying to find life on other planets. They're far more intelligent on the fields of astronomy, physics, and exobiology that anyone of us. Give those guys some credit when they say: "UFOS have not any real support on evidence". 

Finally, about those "eyewitnesses"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xag3oOzvU68

Sesshaku no offense but i am well versed and well aware of all of these skeptical arguments and don't need my memory refreshed, thanks.  Bottom line is the overwhelming amount of evidence proves otherwise.  I challenge you to stop being so ignorant and take a look at some of the more compelling incidents yourself.  Perhaps you could read the book by Leslie Kean that someone else has linked.  Tyson, Sagan, these are not people that have taken a serious look at the phenomenon, the evidence, and instead opt to argue the larger associated scientific and philosphical problems of extra-terrestrial life and interstellar travel.  And while they do make good points (i like Tyson and Sagan a lot), nevertheless, the phenomenon consistently proves otherwise.

[Sesshaku]

NovaM4 wrote...

Have you guys ever seen this? It's called:"Playing god" (A BBC Documentairy)
Our technology is more advanced that i expected.

www.youtube.com/watch

It is indeed. We kind of created a synthethic cell. And once i read about a partly organic partly hardware mouse brain that learned how to move around with a mouse car. Oh, here it is .

Mind = Blown isn't it?.

[StarGateGod]

NovaM4 wrote...

Have you guys ever seen this? It's called:"Playing god" (A BBC Documentairy)
Our technology is more advanced that i expected.

www.youtube.com/watch

we as humans curently have the power to create universes at will, and we already have, IE we are gods the creator of universes

[Pottumuusi]

pistolols wrote...

Sesshaku no offense but i am well versed and well aware of all of these skeptical arguments and don't need my memory refreshed, thanks.  Bottom line is the overwhelming amount of evidence proves otherwise.  I challenge you to stop being so ignorant and take a look at some of the more compelling incidents yourself.  Perhaps you could read the book by Leslie Kean that someone else has linked.  Tyson, Sagan, these are not people that have taken a serious look at the phenomenon, the evidence, and instead opt to argue the larger associated scientific and philosphical problems of extra-terrestrial life and interstellar travel.  And while they do make good points (i like Tyson and Sagan a lot), nevertheless, the phenomenon consistently proves otherwise.

I'm still waiting for this evidence.

[inko1nsiderate]

G Kevin wrote...

inko1nsiderate wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

Some new concept is probably out there, undiscovered that will "update" our understanding of physics.

Plus if FTL travel does through out past experiments, you can always make exceptions until further understanding explains it. It seems impossible now with what we know but it could also be tied with a physical concept that we have not discovered yet. in time, we will find something.

...I get the idea you didn't read what I wrote.

I admit, I did skim the post. I wanted to write my thought down before I forgot it.

I think I did understand what you were saying, correct me if I am wrong though. FTL travel, with our current understanding of physics, is not likely and is seemingly impossible.

EDIT: Since we are talking about radio, here: 
 

It isn't just that there is no understanding of current physics that makes it seem possible, it is that there is also no experimental hint that there is any new physics out there.

The constraints and experiments on our current models of particle physics, the realm in which you would find truly novel ideas about interactions, have been tested for so many decades.  The Standard Model is SO GOOD at predicting what we see, that it is hard to modify it in some less dramatic ways let alone anyway that will make Warp Drives possible and practical.

I don't doubt we will have our understanding totally changed, but I do doubt that certain things will ever come about.  It just seems to me that the history of physics is full of 'our understanding was refined as we went to a new length scale, and this allowed higher preceision'  rather than 'our past understanding was entirely wrong, the Earth is round!'.  Of course, in this sense I define physics as starting with Netwon.  Of course there have been radical paradigm shifts in theoretical physics, but it hasn't been as dramatic as what would be required to have a Warp Drive in 100 years.  That doesn't mean it won't happen, it just means it isn't such an inevitable fact as many people nonchalantly treat it.

[Rooster8227]

...but can you prove it? Sadly, the answer is no.
Hospitable planets are out there, like keplar 22b, but that's 600 light years away so it could've exploded or been wiped out by a meteor and we'd never know. Plus there are so many other variables other than being in a 'safe zone' around a star. I think there must be other life with space seemingly going on forever, but how can we know?!

[Pottumuusi]

Rooster8227 wrote...

...but can you prove it? Sadly, the answer is no.
Hospitable planets are out there, like keplar 22b, but that's 600 light years away so it could've exploded or been wiped out by a meteor and we'd never know. Plus there are so many other variables other than being in a 'safe zone' around a star. I think there must be other life with space seemingly going on forever, but how can we know?!

Wouldn't it be fun to notice a huge cataclysm when you are halfway there?

[G Kevin]

inko1nsiderate wrote...

It isn't just that there is no understanding of current physics that makes it seem possible, it is that there is also no experimental hint that there is any new physics out there.

The constraints and experiments on our current models of particle physics, the realm in which you would find truly novel ideas about interactions, have been tested for so many decades.  The Standard Model is SO GOOD at predicting what we see, that it is hard to modify it in some less dramatic ways let alone anyway that will make Warp Drives possible and practical.

I don't doubt we will have our understanding totally changed, but I do doubt that certain things will ever come about.  It just seems to me that the history of physics is full of 'our understanding was refined as we went to a new length scale, and this allowed higher preceision'  rather than 'our past understanding was entirely wrong, the Earth is round!'.  Of course, in this sense I define physics as starting with Netwon.  Of course there have been radical paradigm shifts in theoretical physics, but it hasn't been as dramatic as what would be required to have a Warp Drive in 100 years.  That doesn't mean it won't happen, it just means it isn't such an inevitable fact as many people nonchalantly treat it.

I think it is more having to do with optimism. It is much better to say that it is inevitable to create something that can go FTL than saying it is uncertain.

[Pottumuusi]

G Kevin wrote...

I think it is more having to do with optimism. It is much better to say that it is inevitable to create something that can go FTL than saying it is uncertain.

As per our understanding of reality, it's not uncertain, it's impossible.

[Zuka999]

Anyone with basic education and the ability to think outside of what can be directly seen knows there is life in the universe. Its insanity to assume that ours is the only star out of, what, 30 billion trillion stars in the universe, to have life.

[G Kevin]

Pottumuusi wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

I think it is more having to do with optimism. It is much better to say that it is inevitable to create something that can go FTL than saying it is uncertain.

As per our understanding of reality, it's not uncertain, it's impossible.

I hope our understanding of reality evolves with evidence to make it possible.

[NovaM4]

Zuka999 wrote...

Anyone with basic education and the ability to think outside of what can be directly seen knows there is life in the universe. Its insanity to assume that ours is the only star out of, what, 30 billion trillion stars in the universe, to have life.

ofcourse it is!.

But im affraid that we can't ever meet them i think. We will be all dead thanks to ourselves before we can meet Alien life. But if we survive that. It is succesfull. I think many alien species have the same problems as us. Overpopulation. Greenhouse Effect, Dying suns, Out of resources. Keep going on and on.. If we survive all that.. We have learned what to do and what not to do.. But i will be long dead when i withness that moment(s).

[NovaM4]

As per our understanding of reality, it's not uncertain, it's impossible.

If you think like that.. We will never make it..

[Sesshaku]

Sesshaku no offense but i am well versed and well aware of all of these skeptical arguments and don't need my memory refreshed, thanks.  Bottom line is the overwhelming amount of evidence proves otherwise.  I challenge you to stop being so ignorant and take a look at some of the more compelling incidents yourself.  Perhaps you could read the book by Leslie Kean that someone else has linked.  Tyson, Sagan, these are not people that have taken a serious look at the phenomenon, the evidence, and instead opt to argue the larger associated scientific and philosphical problems of extra-terrestrial life and interstellar travel.  And while they do make good points (i like Tyson and Sagan a lot), nevertheless, the phenomenon consistently proves otherwise.

None taken.

But.

1º: There's no scientific evidence. There are just reports. Many of those proven wrong. Just as an example. There have been reports of Dwarves with the same amount of evidence. No video ever resisted analysis.

2º: Sagan did take a really serious look at the phenomenon, in fact, look at these


 
Well, this one doesn't count, it was just a symbol. but proves that he actually cared.

http://farm6.static...._ac867e6189.jpg

3º: I didn't read THAT book, but i read and saw reports from other UFO supporters. In fact i quite follow news on groups like MUFON (though there many of those groups that doesn't deserved to be taken seriously). And im afraid i haven't seen any real proof.

4º: Again, the phenomenom HASN'T been proved. Even if it was true, until i see REAL evidence, i can't believe you. Because 90% of what you have is reports, photos, and videos. And almost all of them are false.

5º: Also, there's the fact that all the reports kind of sound illogical. It's just not possible that i believe that Aliens came all over here in small spaceships to do pretty much nothing. I can't believe all the goverments workers around the world haven't stolen a single piece of real evidence. We live in a world full of annonymous access to the media. Leaks happen everywhere, and after all these years, not even one single tiny little physical evidence?.
 

I accept the challenge to stop being ignorant. But i do it only if you accept these 2 things:

1º: I will not take as a fact anything without evidence. And to claim that we are in fact visited by aliens, needs a LOT of evidence that explains not only that the phenomenom is real, but how is it that no sattelite, radar, telescope, amateur astronomer, scientist or worker could ever reached to leak evidence.

2º: You will have to accept the challenge of bring all the evidence you have to be tested by scientist that doesn't believe UFO's are real. Because if you have something that could make Tyson or Hawkins or Hawking that UFO's are real, then you have serious sh#@.

[inko1nsiderate]

G Kevin wrote...

inko1nsiderate wrote...

It isn't just that there is no understanding of current physics that makes it seem possible, it is that there is also no experimental hint that there is any new physics out there.

The constraints and experiments on our current models of particle physics, the realm in which you would find truly novel ideas about interactions, have been tested for so many decades.  The Standard Model is SO GOOD at predicting what we see, that it is hard to modify it in some less dramatic ways let alone anyway that will make Warp Drives possible and practical.

I don't doubt we will have our understanding totally changed, but I do doubt that certain things will ever come about.  It just seems to me that the history of physics is full of 'our understanding was refined as we went to a new length scale, and this allowed higher preceision'  rather than 'our past understanding was entirely wrong, the Earth is round!'.  Of course, in this sense I define physics as starting with Netwon.  Of course there have been radical paradigm shifts in theoretical physics, but it hasn't been as dramatic as what would be required to have a Warp Drive in 100 years.  That doesn't mean it won't happen, it just means it isn't such an inevitable fact as many people nonchalantly treat it.

I think it is more having to do with optimism. It is much better to say that it is inevitable to create something that can go FTL than saying it is uncertain.

But saying it is inevitable exactly flies in the face of what science is, and specifically how physics discovers new things.  The evidence all says that it isn't possible.  This has been the case for nearly 100 years.  Experiments that could measure the distance from Chicago to New York down to the precision of a few milimeters have found no hint, no clue, that this is remotely possible.  The theory of relativity is tested every day in particle accelerates, GPS satelites, and experiments all over the globe and has been for many, many decades.   The theory isn't why we should believe it isn't possible:  the lack of any empirical evidence for it being possible is why we should be skeptical that it is possible, let alone inevitable.  And it isn't just a single experiment, it is a poponderence of experiments over many decades.  The LHC will collect more data than all of the particle accelerators before it combined.  So it isn't even a matter of more experiments, for more time, it is also continually collecting more data about physics than was ever collected before as well.  And the fact that we haven't found anything that is Beyond the Standard Model in over two decades should not be ignored for the sake of idealism.

Yes, Newtonian gravity was ursurped by General Relativity but that was because of a tiny descrepency between the predicted orbit of the planets and the actual value.  For all but large scale structure (we are talking clusters of galaxies here), and incredilby heavy masses (eg black holes) Newtonian's laws of gravity are still used to calculate answers that are accurate within experimental error.